ODOT progresses on ‘twin’ bridge for Willamette River project

Crews are starting to shape the arches of the northbound crossing of the Willamette River Bridge project, which is the Oregon Department of Transportation’s largest replacement project ever. The Interstate-5 bridges, which connect the cities of Eugene and Springfield, are also the agency’s first to use a construction manager/general contractor delivery system.

This week crews started work on a new 17-foot sound wall along the east side of I-5. ODOT construction project manager Karl Wieseke says a “typical person” wouldn’t notice a difference between the under-construction northbound bridge and it’s “twin” for southbound traffic, which opened last fall. But there are some unique elements from a construction standpoint.

Crews led by a CM/GC partnership between Hamilton Construction and OBEC Consulting Engineers recently finished demolishing the temporary I-5 detour bridge to make way for the permanent replacement. Instead of dropping all of the materials from the detour bridge into a landfill, ODOT salvaged more than 200 concrete and steel beams, and sold them at a significantly reduced rate ($2,500 instead of more than $17,000) to agencies that include Multnomah County, the city of Florence, and the U.S. Forest Service.

Wieseke also said that pricing several aspects of the northbound bridge was easier – and cheaper – because cost estimates were based on work already completed on the southbound bridge. For the first, southbound bridge, more unknowns were involved when it came to efforts like drilling shafts 40 feet into the ground, which led to higher price estimates.

The northbound bridge is expected to be open for traffic in August 2013. The entire project, which also includes a new bicycle/pedestrian viaduct, is on track to wrap up by 2015.